“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine wholeheartedly welcomes this positive and important joint position statement from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. It recognises the ever-increasing system wide pressure the NHS is under and the remarkable efforts of staff to keep patients safe in these tough times.

“It is crucial that the forthcoming 10-year Plan looks holistically at the NHS’s problems, but it must not be in a rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the hope that redirection is the only answer. The need for community and social care is plain as day, but this should not come at the expense of primary and acute care which are desperately in need of resource and staffing to manage an increasingly complex acute workload.

“The plan must also set realistic and achievable aims, particularly in light of the growing body of evidence that suggests the funding settlement is insufficient.”